100 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
Texas has also an abundance of kaolin, or china clay; deposits of ex¬ 
cellent quality; the quality not estimated from laboratory results and 
analyses alone, but acknowledged by the practical experts of the most re¬ 
nowned porcelain factories of Europe, to whom I had sent specimens of 
Texas kaolin in 1884. We have any amount of excellent kaolin in close 
proximity to fuel, but no porcelain factories. 
The use of kaolin is not, however, confined to the manufacture of 
porcelain. Mixed with lime in proper proportion, it makes cement equal 
to the best. Some experiments which I made with mixtures of lime and 
kaolin resulted in hydraulic cements of great strength, requiring only a 
short time to set, though I had no opportunity to expose the materials 
to the full heat necessary for a thorough combination of the constituents. 
Many of our Texas kaolins are also sufficiently pure for manufactur¬ 
ing ultramarine colors. 
That some of the marly limestones of Texas make a good quality of 
cement is successfully demonstrated by the cement factory of San An¬ 
tonio. 
The hydraulic qualities of dolomite were discovered nearly seventy 
years ago by McLeod and Vicat; and closer investigations of this subject 
madb about thirty years later by Deville, Redtenbacher, Pasley, and 
others proved that dolomitic limestone, under certain conditions, can be 
converted into very good building mortar. But during the last five or 
six years the albolith, a hydraulic lime made of dolomite, is manufac¬ 
tured in Austria and brought into market in large quantities. There 
is any amount of dolomitic limestone and dolomite in Texas—the 
raw material for manufacturing the albolith—which, though it has very 
valuable qualities, is up to now hardly known in the United States. It 
settles and sets slower than the other hydraulic cements, but, once set, it 
is nearly impenetrable to water, and makes, therefore, an excellent mortar 
for cisterns and covering of walls. It also resists better than common 
cements the dissolving action of sea water. 
The salt deposits of Texas are partly known and utilized, as the salt 
beds near Colorado City, other deposits in Southwest Texas, and the 
salt lakes at the foot of the Guadaloupe Mountains in El Paso county. 
But there can be hardly any doubt that in the eastern part of the State 
there also exist extensive salt deposits, and that they will be found 100 
to 200 feet below the lowest lignite beds. 
The existence of rock salt deposits in the vicinity of the headwaters of 
the Double Mountain Fork and the Salt Fork of the Brazos River is more 
than probable, judging not only from the geological character of the 
country, but also from the character of the waters of these tributaries 
of the Brazos River; and I think it is safe to predict that besides, prob¬ 
ably above the purer chloride of sodium (common salt), the more valu- 
